


even though i'm mining gold

by Anonymous



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Podfic Available, Travis Konecny: the angel on Pattys shoulder and the devil on everyone elses, nopat deserved a comeback is what im saying, set in an alternate universe where 2020 doesnt suck and things are good actually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:48:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23791846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Look, his head hurts. It hurts and it hurts a lot and sitting alone in a dark room sometimes makes it hurt less but it makes everything else hurt more. It's frustrating coming up against a problem that can't be fixed by discipline and routine. He wants to find drills that make his head better and run them til he can’t feel his feet.“That’s not really how migraines work, bud.” TK says helpfully.“I knowthat,” Nolan grumbles. “I’m just saying it would be nice, is all.”
Relationships: Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick
Comments: 20
Kudos: 293
Collections: Anonymous





	even though i'm mining gold

**Author's Note:**

> If you have any knowledge of the actual Flyers schedule or anything from the season don't think about it (unless it works, in which case I totally did that on purpose), I'm not actually a Flyers fan. RPF is not usually my style but I saw the chance to do a little projecting and I ran with it.
> 
> As far as actual content warning stuff, there are brief appearances of a real life sister (I literally only know her name, any other similarity is a complete accident) and there is a very minor brushed by thing that _could_ reference homophobia if you choose to read it that way but it's for one line and very very not in detail.
> 
> If you or anyone you know appears in this click away, etc, etc. Title from Missing Home by Flora Cash

***

Nolan thinks he can get away with it, at first. As he's been informed by the media people, he's a notoriously grumpy bastard on a good day, mumbling and grumbling in monotony. It's just a headache, really, and he's played through worse, and it's probably just a one off anyways so it shouldn't be that big of a deal. He'll just look like he's extra serious about this year until it clears. Focused. The fans will love it.

It turns out to be a big deal. The fans do not love it.

He wasn’t expecting it to get worse. Get worse and then worse again until suddenly he was left feeling like there was nothing he could do but shut himself in his room and try to sleep so he couldn’t feel it anymore. He feels a little bad for Haysie who agreed to live with Nolan the human person and not a hermit but this situation isn’t exactly ideal for him either and he figures that Haysie probably gets that. 

Haysie does check in on him often because he’s a good teammate and more importantly a good bro, and also maybe because he’s worried that if he doesn’t Nolan will wither away without anyone noticing.

“Hey Patty.” 

Nolan rolls over as his bedroom door creeps open, letting in a sliver of light. It’s a particularly bad day. Nolan’s not even really sure what day it is, to be honest. He hasn’t seen much of the outside world recently, hasn’t adhered to any type of schedule without hockey setting it for him.

“Just letting you know that I’m heading out for the game.”

“Mhh,” Nolan says in response.

“TK says hi, by the way.”

“Mhh,” Nolan says again.

TK almost always says hi, if Haysie is to be believed. He says ‘hi’ or ‘miss you buddy’ or ‘I could totally come sit in your room and be really quiet if you want any company’ and Nolan completely believes that the last one is a quote directly from TK’s mouth which makes Nolan snort because, no, he totally could not do that. Haysie shrugs. “I think he actually means it too, the animal,” and Haysie’s probably not lying about that either.

In the present, Haysie’s face turns into a small frown before he leaves, using excessive care to make sure the door clicks shut softly. Nolan rolls back to where he was before and tries to let the darkness consume him.

***

Look, his head hurts. It hurts and it hurts a lot and sitting alone in a dark room sometimes makes it hurt less but it makes everything else hurt more. It's frustrating coming up against a problem that can't be fixed by discipline and routine. He wants to find drills that make his head better and run them til he can’t feel his feet.

“That’s not really how migraines work, bud.” TK says helpfully.

“I know _that_ ,” Nolan grumbles. “I’m just saying it would be nice, is all.”

He does know that, and it would be nice, and neither of those facts change a thing. He works with the trainers all the time trying an endless cycle of things that are all equally useless. “We’ll find something eventually” they always try to reassure him, “it just takes time.”

Nolan gets that too, but. 

It sucks, sometimes, looking at his peers and their careers and their girlfriends and their dogs and feeling like the rest of them hadn't gotten stuck in time. Like they had the _choice_ to keep moving. 

It’s been a few years now since he had properly moved out of a home where someone else was responsible for keeping him alive, but adult life had never really stopped feeling like some strange summer camp. He knew it was a weird thing to think but he couldn't shake it. No matter how stuck he got in the loop of mundanity, in the droning of everyday life during recovery, there was always a voice somewhere in the back of his mind telling him that this wasn't permanent. That in a month he would go back home and his mom would kiss his cheek and cook him dinner and he'd fall asleep in his twin bed with the striped sheets and that's the way that things would be again.

It's a dumb thing to dwell on for a number of reasons, not least of which is that he doesn’t even think he wants that at all. He’s not a kid anymore and he certainly doesn’t want to be treated like one. It’s the simplicity, maybe, that's pulling his brain in that direction in the middle of the night when he’s having trouble sleeping. Thoughtless, unfailing optimism is a symptom of youth. When Nolan used to dream of his future it didn’t involve migraine disorders and solitude and an endless frustrating grind. 

It was easier then. 

Whatever the reason, it doesn’t matter. Adulthood is permanent. So here he is, stagnant career, alone today, alone tomorrow. He didn’t need to date when he was younger. It was easy to justify to himself that he didn’t even want to because he was young and free and had so much time. He would worry about it later. But for present Nolan with a budding NHL career that hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing, it’s not the right later, which is why he’s alone when the team is on the road and why there’s no one there when he’s trying to sleep even though he feels like his skull might split in half. 

He’s, like, past having a crisis or whatever. Been there, done that. He’s fine, mostly. Not ideal, but fine. He’s twenty one, he’s theoretically an adult, and adults who get taken seriously do not have crises about self identity. 

He could be more fine, probably, if he had less free time to think about it. It and every other decision made in his life that lead him to this point, twenty one and alone in a dark room while all his buddies are out traveling the continent and living the dream and he’s just trying his best to will the threads and duct tape that apparently hold his body together to do their jobs a _little bit better_ for once. He’s a driven guy, he knows he got where he did because of the hard work he put in because he _wanted it_ so bad he could taste it. He’s never really been one to look out at the ‘what could have been’s. But it’s hard, and it gets harder as weeks turn to months turn to who knows how long. 

He understands, in a strange way, why there are people that would give up hockey to enjoy a taste of a different kind of freedom. If he forgets who he is, it’s almost tempting.

But he knows who he is, and he knows that he wouldn’t last a day without hockey. With the ice under his blades and a stick in his hands he doesn’t have to be real, doesn’t have to worry about the world around him. On the best of days, he doesn’t have to be anyone at all. There’s a strange comfort in getting to forget entirely who you are. 

It’s worth a few sacrifices. He’s not even lying to himself about that.

***

Philly can get suffocating sometimes. He’s not, like- he doesn't- it's not that he doesn't love Philly. He does. He loves the team, loves the city, wants to stay here, wants to play here.

But there’s something about the air and the space in Manitoba that gives him room to breathe. No cameras, no microphones, nobody who wants to know what he does and what he’s doing. He’s not being _watched_. He’s known his buddies there forever. It’s familiar, comfortable.

A lot of life in hockey is being able to handle change, new people, new places, all in the blink of an eye with a smile that lets people know you’re not a ‘problem’. Nolan’s not always good at new people who don’t like his monotone or his sarcasm right away. He likes to know the people and the places and get comfortable in a routine. He has that in Manitoba in a way that he doesn’t really have a lot of other chances to get. It’s his parents and his sisters and familiar roads with familiar curves and it’s _home_ and it settles in his chest every time he goes back.

He scrolls past another headline asking if he’s a bust yet. “The skill is there,” the article says, “but he just can’t seem to stay healthy.”

He wants Philly to love him, wants to show them what he can do on the ice and what he can do for a team. He’s itching for that chance always, always, always. He doesn’t want to let them hate him first. He knows the pressure he has on his shoulders and he knows that every second he doesn’t play it builds more, but right now there’s nothing he can do except sit there and try not to let it crush him.

He can hear his sister in the back of his head yelling at him not to read that stuff, which like, he gets in theory. In practice, even. Because she’s right. It does in fact suck less if you ignore the people saying unpleasant things about you. And sometimes he’s even successful at doing so.

But sometimes he’s really fucking bored and upset and all the articles using him as clickbait in the headlines are quite literally calling his name. And they’re not even like, totally wrong either. Rubbing salt in the wound perhaps, but not wholly wrong. He _can’t_ seem to stay healthy. He wishes even more than the media people looking for a new scoop that he knew the reason why.

***

There’s bad days and there’s good days and if Nolan was a smarter man he would take better advantage of the good ones when they happen. He has more free time than he’s ever had before and he has absolutely no idea what to do with it. He can work out a little but he can’t do anything too physically strenuous, which, conveniently, is the entire way he’s handled stress for his whole life. He buys a puzzle and thinks briefly about picking up some stupid hobby like knitting cause he already feels enough like an old lady, but the puzzle is slow going and he leaves himself far too much time to sit around and feel sorry for himself. He gets really talented at it.

TK comes over to check on him sometimes and Nolan can tell that it's physically difficult for him to keep things at a suitable level of chill given the circumstances. Not that Nolan would purposefully have TK over on a day where that might be problem. He usually tries his best to confine TK visits into the good days so things feel normal and so that TK doesn’t make a sad face, or like, elbow Nolan in the head on accident. Equally possible. 

The first time that Nolan met TK at training camp he was genuinely actually worried, for his own sanity more than TK’s. Nolan’s not shy, just reserved, prefers to play his cards close to his chest or whatever, and none of that could ever in a thousand years be used to describe TK. From the minute Nolan walked into the locker room TK was zipping around, chirping people, throwing things at them, just really being an all around menace. Nolan sometimes thinks the fact that TK manages to come off as endearing and charming and somehow not the most horrifying person in the world is some sort of superpower.

They don’t ever do much, just shoot the shit and play video games if he’s up for screen time and eat a bunch of (trainer approved headache free) garbage. On his way out TK will always clap Nolan on the back and say something along the lines of “Soon, buddy.” Nolan wishes that TK actually knew what he was talking about. 

The crux of the problem is that he misses skating and he misses _hockey_ and no other dumb hobby he can think of will fill that spot. He tries desperately to take any opportunity to cling on to the one constant he’s had his whole life, but there’s only so much he can do at the moment. He likes to think he’s not a completely useless person without hockey but it’s also sort of a core feature of who he is as a person and it feels a little too late to change that at this point.

Even though TK only comes over on good days, it doesn’t keep him from making occasional sad faces. Not too obviously, Nolan probably wouldn’t notice if he wasn’t looking for it, but he is looking for it and he does notice the way TK’s forehead will crease when Nolan says “You can hang, but no screens today” or the quick flash in his eyes when Nolan ushers him out far earlier in the night than he usually would. “Sorry,” Nolan says, “just, tired, you know,” and TK brushes him off, says “No, no I get it, get some sleep, eh?”

Nolan doesn’t want to be pitied. He doesn’t want to hear about promise and potential and “oh, what a shame it is.” Pity doesn’t help anything. It's useless.

***

Haysie invites TK over on one of the bad days without Nolan’s knowledge. Nolan learns this when he wanders into the kitchen fully wrapped in his duvet. “Sorry,” Haysie says. “He always asks how you’re doing and gets all embarrassing about how much he misses you.”

“You saw me last week.” Nolan grumbles.

“ _Once_.” TK whines

Nolan’s not really in the mood to engage. “Hey, move,” He mumbles at Haysie, who's standing in front of the cabinet with the cups. He only really came out here to get some water. Haysie pats him gently on the shoulder before heading back to his room, leaving Nolan with TK.

TK watches as Nolan shuffles across the kitchen, dragging his feet a little. “I can grab stuff for you if you need help with anything.” That offer was about as welcome as TK probably knew it would be even as he was saying it. 

“‘M fine.”

“Sorry,” TK says, even though he’s clearly not. “Just, I’ve never seen you like this. Is it this bad often?”

Nolan shrugs from his duvet cocoon. “Not all the time. Just, y’know, enough.”

TK frowns. “I’m not making it worse by being here, am I?”

Nolan wants to tell TK that he is, in fact, headache-inducing but decides it might be rude to make fun of TK when he’s clearly trying his best to be a caring person.

“You’re fine, ‘m just gonna be boring. Sitting around and sleeping, y’know.”

TK somehow manages to take this as an invitation and follows Nolan back to his room. For some ungodly reason (Nolan has largely given up on trying to figure out why TK does the things he does) he decides to spend his day sitting in Nolan’s dark room while he naps. 

When Nolan wakes up again it takes him a minute to get his bearings. He startles himself for a half a second when he sees TK, partially illuminated by the dim glow of his phone. The rustling Nolan makes is enough to get TK’s attention. He locks his phone screen, shutting off the only meager light source they had. “Better?” he asks softly, unbothered by the dark. Every now and then TK manages to sneak a hint of sincerity into his voice, probably not even on purpose, which makes it even worse when it happens. 

“Mhmm” Nolan grunts out, still feeling a little off kilter. The worst of it’s over but it’s not all the way gone yet. He slowly starts getting up and making his way out of bed. He’s thirsty again. 

When he stands all the way up he’s a little shaky and TK swoops in to steady him before he even notices it himself. “Hey, alright?”

Nolan brushes him off. “‘M good. Thirsty.”

TK doesn’t reach back in and try to help Nolan again, but he hovers pretty closely behind as they make their way back out to the kitchen. Nolan is not particularly pleased by this but he also doesn’t really want to deal with arguing it right now so he just pretends he doesn’t notice. 

TK seems uncharacteristically hesitant like he’s exercising thoughts and self control which is fascinating and also makes Nolan feel like he’s being handled with kid gloves. They settle on the couch and he asks, “You need anything?”

Nolan just raises his cup slightly from where he’s holding it. “Got it,” he mumbles, and TK doesn’t say anything. Nolan ends up falling asleep again and when he wakes up TK is gone and the blanket from his lap is pulled closer up towards his shoulders in a way that gives him a tinge of the homesickness he usually tries not to think about.

***

Nolan still has to go to the rink like twice a week which is sort of cruel punishment because he’s not actually able to do anything hockey related. Instead he gets the pleasure of sitting in the trainer’s room talking to the medical staff as they flip through a bunch of papers and ask Nolan if he feels like there has been any progress (there hasn’t) and then they give him new suggestions and treatment strategies which Nolan will obviously try but he doesn’t feel even fleeting optimism about any of them.

The trainers always remind him that “it’s not a science” and like, Nolan was hardly a star student so he’s definitely not an authority on what is or isn’t a science but he feels like doctor things are the type of things that should be considered science. That always used to be his understanding, at least. 

He usually picks up take out on the way home (now with new dietary restrictions!) and shoves it in his face quickly enough that he hardly notices the taste before taking another nap.

In short, he’s having a great time. 

He uses some of this time to not have a crisis, because at this point he might as well. It doesn’t count as a crisis, he doesn’t think, cause it’s not that he’s not sure. He’s very incredibly sure which is the sort of thing that can induce a whole new crisis, namely: what to do about it. Everytime he has this non-crisis it starts and ends with him lying face down on some surface and inevitably deciding that the answer is nothing. Not confront it, not deal with it, not even let himself worry about it until it’s time for him to do it all over again. He doesn’t let this one be much different, really, because his life at the moment lacks a lot of the staples it usually features and Nolan will let himself keep the comfort of a familiar non-crisis. 

He does think that maybe he should try and start getting used to using, like, a word for the whole _thing_ so that if, perhaps, he ever felt like he might be interested in telling a person he could, you know, do that. With a word.

He doesn’t do it out loud even though he’s heard that it’s a thing that people do and it like, makes the earth shake beneath their feet or something. He doesn’t really want the earth to shake beneath his feet and besides, he doesn’t live alone. Realistically he knows when Haysie is home or not but it doesn’t take his mind long at all to provide him with an image of Haysie walking into the house right as Nolan is saying “I’m gay,” out loud to no one while staring blankly at a wall which would let Haysie know that Nolan is both gay and also losing his mind and it just doesn’t seem like the ideal way to do things. 

Besides, that drawn out anxiety scenario led him to using the gay word about himself twice without even realizing it and the world kept turning which feels like enough for the moment.

***

Nolan forgets to call his parents sometimes. They don’t have a bad relationship, he just doesn't really know what to say to them. He knows it makes his mom kind of upset, but he thinks she would probably also be a bit upset if she got day by day updates on his life right now.

He calls his sisters though. Or rather, they call him. Maddie does not have the sense to be upset on his behalf. She’s really good at projecting older sister disappointment at him through the speaker. “Mom and dad would love to hear from you, you know.” 

“I know,” Nolan says like he’s a kid getting in trouble. Maddie doesn’t flinch. 

“You could tell them about your day, give them signs of life, nice and easy.” 

Nolan’s in a foul mood already, and he doesn’t really like being told what to do. He says, rather unfairly, “ _They_ could call _me_ if they want to know how I’m doing.”

He can tell by the way Maddie sighs that she would have hit him if they were talking in person. “Yeah, _or_ they could be good parents who understand that their twenty year old son is an adult who might not want to feel like he’s being babied, and they figured he would be nice enough to call on his own without being asked to.”

Nolan sighs as well, wishing deeply that it was not feelings hour. “Maybe I don’t want to bother them with it, okay. There’s no hockey, I’m not really doing much right now.”

“Hate to break it to you, Nols, but some people do actually care about you outside of hockey.”

Nolan still doesn’t call his parents after Maddie tells him “I love you, you fucking idiot,” and hangs up on him. He will, okay, he just doesn’t want to do it cause Maddie said so. He’ll do it tomorrow. He told TK to come over after practice anyways. 

Nolan doesn’t _mean_ to be an emotional recluse. He just prefers to handle his emotions on his own. He thinks he does a good job of keeping them to himself.

TK comes over and it takes him all of ten minutes before putting down his controller and saying “Something’s got you extra grumpy today.” 

Nolan bristles. “I’m not grumpy.” He probably could have said it a little less grumpily, but he’s not admitting anything to TK no matter how right he is. 

TK looks like he’s about to push it but instead he picks up the controller again and says, “Sure thing, bud.”

Nolan tries to be less grumpy after that because he didn’t invite TK over to be miserable, but sometimes he just can’t stop his head from swimming. Lack of control over his own head is sort of his thing right now. The silence that stretches between them is unusual and uncomfortable. Even then, TK doesn’t bring it up again until he’s about to leave.

He’s heading for the door when he turns around and crosses his arms in a way that reminds Nolan of a stubborn kid. “You can talk to me, you know.”

“I’m not exactly super fun to talk to all the time right now.” Nolan’s staring at his feet as he says it. 

“I don’t care.” TK says with conviction and Nolan does not mean to snap his head up as obviously as he does. “I don’t ask how you’re doing all the time just for the pleasantries. I’m asking cause you’re my buddy and you’re going through a tough time and I want to be there for you.”

It’s honest and sincere in the way that TK is, one hundred percent all the time, and it's weird for Nolan to see it directed at himself like that. “You do plenty, you hang out with me all the time. You sat with me in the dark the other day.”

TK looks pleased at this admission. “Are you trying to tell me you enjoy my company?”

Nolan scoffs. “I’m saying you’ll do.”

This seems to work for TK, who does finally make his way to the door. “Soon, Patty. Closer than ever,” he says as the door closes behind him.

Nolan thinks that maybe it was good for him to chirp TK a bit. It feels good, feels normal. He stares at the door for a second and lets himself smile just a little before turning to make his way to the kitchen. 

“Wow,” Haysie says in his terrible accent out of absolutely fucking nowhere. “I’ve never seen him like that before.”

Nolan might jump about fifteen feet in the air. “Jesus fucking Christ, dude.” 

Haysie just shrugs. “I live here.”

***

Nolan is in the training room talking with some of the medical staff when TK strolls in with the complete lack of remorse you would expect from someone who needed their face checked out, because it had been punched, because they were being an asshole.

It's absolutely astounding to Nolan that TK doesn’t get punched in the face more often, given their profession and his general vibe. Like, clearly he's been punched in the face before, or whatever, but if it happened more often Nolan could hardly blame people. 

Nolan thinks this out of love, obviously.

Asshole or not, he’s a welcome addition to what is quickly becoming Nolan’s least favourite room in Philadelphia. There’s a shine around TK and Nolan has never figured out how he always has the power to keep it going. “Patso!” he says into the usually depressing gray room. He has day old stitches on his cheek that need to be checked out again. “Talking about your head?”

Nolan gives him a small nod. “Always”

“Any breakthroughs?” 

Nolan scrubs a hand over his face. “Might be caffeine, dunno. Gonna try and cut it out, probably.”

TK winces a little in sympathy. “No more coffee then?”

“No more coffee.”

TK doesn’t hang around long after that, he has ‘currently in season’ places to be that Nolan wishes for a number of reasons would also rescue him. They obviously do not, but Nolan leaves the training room in a relatively good mood anyways. 

Despite being the product of a wonderful WHL education, Nolan's not completely dumb. And he might spend all of his time surrounded by some of the most emotionally repressed idiots in the world, but he's not completely unaware either. He knows, _he knows_ the feeling that's starting to creep under his skin. He allows himself to panic over it for exactly one night before putting that Dub education to use and coming to the only logical conclusion: more repression. So, not unaware. Just pretending to be unaware. There is, unfortunately, a huge difference.

***

He does finally get around to calling his parents about a week later, a little sheepish, but they pretend not to notice that he’s been weird and offer no judgement. “Hi honey,” his mom says with a little pixely wave through the screen and the warmth that immediately blossoms in Nolan’s chest makes him wish that he’d done this weeks ago. 

***

TK seems less hesitant the next time he wants to come over.

“Hey, I’m coming over,” he says over the phone, not really leaving much room for argument. “I’m bringing coffee. Decaf?”

Decaf sort of defeats the entire purpose of coffee, but Nolan’s not one to turn it down if it's free. “Decaf.”

Nolan is sitting on the couch listening to sad indie music when TK lets himself in and places a cup in Nolan’s hand. “Oh no,” he says “you’re being all tragic again.” 

“Am not.” 

“Bud, you’re listening to sad indie music alone. Seems like a pity party to me.” 

“I _like_ this song” 

“Everyone likes sad indie music when they’re sad.” TK grabs Nolan’s phone before Nolan has the chance to get in his way. 

“If you change it to sad country music I’ll kick your ass.” 

“Not in your pathetic state you won’t.” 

Nolan takes offence to this, seeing as his arms and legs do in fact work just fine. He gets up and yanks his phone out of TK’s hand. “My pity party, I pick the music.” 

Nolan sits back down on the couch and TK immediately drapes himself all over Nolan’s lap as if there’s nowhere else to sit. “We have like, an entire couch here dude.”

“I’m bored.” TK says, instead of moving or explaining his choices.

“ _You’re_ bored?”

“We had an off day today. What am I supposed to do with myself without practice or anything?” TK says this with a straight face and a complete lack of irony.

“Oh, yeah, I have no idea what that’s like. Must be terrible,” Nolan says blandly.

TK turns his head to look up at Nolan. “Yeah, it’s no wonder you’ve been so bitchy and moody all the time. I get it now.”

It’s unfortunate for Nolan and maybe also the city of Philadelphia that he has to kill TK, but sometimes unpleasant things are things that need to be done. That’s what his dad always tells him anyways. He hopes that’s a plausible legal defense.

Luckily for Nolan and the city of Philadelphia, they end up working on the puzzle instead. Unluckily for Nolan, TK is committed to being the worst all the time no matter what he’s doing. 

“Teeks. Why the fuck are you doing it like that.”

“I’m putting pieces together, aren’t I? Seems better than what you’re doing.”

“You’re supposed to start with the _edges_.”

“I didn’t know you were the puzzle expert.”

How much puzzle knowledge Nolan may or may not have doesn’t keep him from being viscerally offended. “Literally anyone who’s put together a puzzle before knows that’s how you’re supposed to do it.”

“Maybe I’m just smarter than them,” he answers without changing a thing that he’s doing, and if Nolan’s not the puzzle expert than TK’s certainly not the being smart expert.

He gets kicked out of Nolan’s pity party when he says “I swear these two fit” immediately before slamming his fist on the table in an attempt to get them together. Nolan can only handle so much in one day.

Of course, TK committing puzzle crimes isn’t exactly the height of Nolan’s issues right now. It drives Nolan absolutely crazy that he can go from having a relatively good day all things considered to feeling like death incarnate less than twenty four hours later. For no good reason Nolan always feels dumb about it when he talks to TK or Haysie or his parents after one of those days. They ask him how he is and what he’s been up to and the answer is always nothing. He was up to nothing. It feels a little pathetic.

He does actually give TK the straight answer the next time he asks and TK just nods and sagely says “self care, I respect it,” in a way that makes Nolan feel like TK googled something along the lines of “how to help grumpy asshole friend?”

Which was nice of him, probably, if he actually did do that.

It's probably a nice thing to say even if he didn’t, so. 

There's that.

***

The trainers have him on some new meds. They knock him right out when he takes them and they make him feel like garbage for pretty much an entire day once he’s functioning again, but at this point he’ll take anything he can get.

TK inspects the bottle like any single word on it would mean a thing to him. “Hey, if it works it works,” he says when he puts the bottle back on the counter. 

“They kind of make me feel like a gremlin,” Nolan mumbles.

“Sounds like it’s getting you back to normal then,” says TK and even Nolan’s groggy gremlin body seems to have maintained the reflex necessary to reach out and smack him. 

He’s actually feeling well enough to go out with the boys so he squishes himself in the booth and turns down the first round of beer. TK does too. TK is a lot of things, but subtle is not one of them. Nolan sighs. “You don’t have to, you know,” he gestures at the beers Haysie just put on the table, “for me.” 

TK grins. “Who said it’s for you, buddy? Maybe I’m just on a juice cleanse.” 

“You’re- not- a juice cleanse.” Nolan takes one look at TK’s dumb, smug face as he takes a sip of his water and knows right away that he will absolutely go down with that stupid, juicy ship if Nolan makes him. “And what kind of juices have you been drinking on this _juice cleanse_?” 

“So many juices, bud.” It’s a cop out. An obvious non-answer. Nolan would know, the Flyers almost pay him for those more than hockey at this point. 

“Can you even name _one_ juice?”

“Green.” TK says without even hesitating.

Nolan doesn't even get the chance to call that out on its bullshit before someone on the other side of TK absently wonders “Are you allowed to drink water on a juice cleanse?” 

“Of course,” TK says, “It’s ice juice.”

This manages to spur an argument at their end of the table that very quickly devolves into yelling that seems entirely unrelated to the concept of ice juice. Nolan almost feels out of practice for being surprised that the conversation managed to get so stupid so quickly. He knows his teammates, he should have seen it coming. TK looks entirely too pleased about the amount of chaos he managed to create and when he makes eye contact with Nolan he just shrugs and says “Oops.”

Despite the mental effects of being forced to sit through that conversation, Nolan’s head has been better and the new meds seem to have proved themselves enough that Nolan gets the okay to come to the rink before practice and skate (“ _Gently_ and _lightly_ and if it makes your head worse at all you stop immediately and come see me” was the stern warning from the trainer).

It’s not exactly all that he could have wanted, and at times it’s actually kind of frustrating that he’s not allowed to go nearly as hard as he wants to. Still, the ice under his feet is grounding and he’s not dumb enough to take that for granted anymore. 

There are some days where Nolan gets home from the rink and he can feel the pressure creeping in behind his eyes, and there are still some times where the rink lights feel so bright that Nolan skates for five minutes before taking himself home without a trainer even needing to yell at him about it. The pace of recovery is absolutely agonizing. 

He skates with Stew a lot and Stew has this dadly thing where he reads frustration off Nolan like it’s written all over him. He says things like “patience, kid” or “rushing it will make the wait ten times longer” often enough that it could be tattooed on the inside of Nolan’s eyelids. Stew has been around for a while and he’s seen more things than Nolan has so Nolan tries his best to listen and not let it drive him a bit crazy. 

Ten times longer does seem pretty terrible, so.

He bumps into his teammates at the rink and in the locker room and it’s desperatley nice to see all of their dumb faces but it’s not normal. They’ll say “Patty!” in a way that makes their surprise at seeing him evident and ask him how he is and how he’s been and if he has a timeline and the entire time they’re so _gentle_ about it. Nolan knows he should appreciate the thoughtfulness that’s clearly intended but he’s been around hockey players enough that the only thing he can read from it is how distant it feels.

Nolan goes home and ices aching muscles in the quiet and in the dark just in case and lets Stew’s advice rattle around his mind. 

_Patience._

It takes discipline, but at least that’s something Nolan’s familiar with.

***

Nolan blames the distant feeling for actually going out of his way to share an emotion with someone. It was Maddie, to be fair, who hardly counts as a person when it comes to emotion sharing. Also to be fair, it wasn’t exactly an emotion so much as The Emotion, so. Nolan feels like he deserves some credit for doing that.

It feels like a really good idea before he does it, and it feels like a good idea while the phone is ringing, and Nolan regrets the entire idea of being emotionally intelligent as soon as Maddie picks up the phone and says “Hey.”

Nolan immediately backtracks on his original plan of just saying it as soon as possible. He and Maddie call often enough that she has no reason to suspect he called for a reason. He asks about school and her friends and their family and she asks how he’s been feeling and how skating has been and Nolan tries very hard to be very normal about it even though he feels incredibly tense just thinking about what he meant to do. It’s only when there’s a lull in the conversation that Maddie shows her hand. “You seem a little nervous. Did you call me to tell me something?”

“Uhh,” Nolan starts, and really he thought he was a better liar than that but his self preservation instinct seems to have completely deserted him. “No?” he finally says but it sounds far too much like a question.

“Nolan, is there something up with your head that you haven’t been telling us? If you’re trying to play through something you shouldn’t I swear to God I’ll come down there and kill you myself.”

Nolan’s heard the voice that Maddie is using before, it’s stern enough to put the fear of God into any man, but she doesn’t use it very often. He recognizes the protective rage in it. He recognizes it from when he came home from a game shaking and telling his family he was quitting hockey so he never had to hear a thing his stupid opponents would say to him ever again and he had to fight tears in his eyes but stayed tight lipped when his parents asked what they said cause he didn’t want to think about it and he definitely didn’t want to repeat it. He recognizes it from when she ripped Nolan’s phone out of his hands to turn his instagram comments off and Nolan was so embarrassed because people would _notice_ and call him soft and weak and Maddie had said “I don’t care, they’re stupid and I’d rather have them say that where you can’t see it because I cant stand the look on your face everytime you read them.”

Those aren’t necessarily fond memories by any stretch of the word but the brief flashbacks remind him of the most important thing about Maddie and Nolan would say just about anything to keep her from thinking that there was anything going on that would make her voice sound like that. The words come out of his mouth before he even gets a chance to think about it.

It’s the first time he says it out loud and he can hardly remember doing it, he feels like he blacked out, but the earth’s not shaking beneath his feet. He’s fine. It’s fine. 

“ _Nolan_ ,” she starts, and he knows that voice too. He didn’t realize how tense he was but he can feel every muscle in his body relax. “That’s- I- wow. Thank you for telling me. That’s _so_ much better than a mystery head injury. Am I the first person you’ve told?”

“Yeah,” Nolan exhales. 

“Are you gonna tell mom and dad?”

Nolan probably should have known that she would have at least one question but it kind of seems like a lot considering how long it took him to say it at all. “Not unless it becomes, like, important.”

“Nolan, it’s always important if it’s who you are.”

That’s a surprisingly touching comment from Maddie that mostly reminds Nolan that no one in his immediate circle went to school and like, meant it. Nolan himself included. “I just meant, like, I’m single and not even talking to anyone or _thinking_ about talking to anyone so it seems like it would just like, invite more questions that I have no good answers to, you know?”

“Of course, of course, it’s up to you to decide when things feel right.” They slip into silence for a second before Maddie says, “I’m proud of you for telling me, you know. And I love you very much.”

Nolan thought he was handling the whole thing surprisingly stoically but he lets out one last shaky exhale he didn’t even know he was waiting on and says “love you too, Mads.”

And it does kind of feel better after that, to know that someone else knows. Nolan doesn’t think it was weighing on him all that heavy, realistically, and he really only let himself think about it once every couple months or so but still. She’s carrying a little of the weight for him now. It’s probably not even heavy for her. It’s nice.

***

“No pity parties and absolutely no puzzles today, we're leaving the house if I have to pick up your unusually large body and carry it with me.” It’s a strange way to greet someone when you let yourself into their house unannounced, but Nolan and TK are probably past the point of needing, like, plans and normal greetings.

Nolan’s contrarian by nature and is incredibly tempted to see what would happen if he made TK carry out his threat, but he does kind of want to leave the house. Instead he gets up and shoves his shoes onto his feet, laces left undone. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see TK starting to open his mouth to make a familiar offer. “No,” Nolan says before TK can get it out. 

“Sure thing, Pats,” TK says with a shrug as they make their way out the door. “I’m just saying, if you trip don’t blame me.”

Nolan tucks in one of the loose laces but leaves the rest as they were, giving TK a dead stare the whole time. He’s making a _point_ , okay. 

And he won’t trip. He’s not five. 

TK’s idea of a non pity party activity is brunch at his favourite diner. It’s also Nolan’s favourite diner and he actually loves when they do brunch there but he’s not going to give TK the satisfaction of knowing that.

TK spends all of brunch kicking at Nolan’s feet which seems very juvenile and gives Nolan no choice but to do the same back to him.

“Motherfucker!” he says to the waitress as Nolan lands a pretty solid kick on the ankle bone right when she walks up. “Fuck, sorry, he’s the motherfucker, not you.”

Nolan was almost able to not laugh at TK’s reaction but the way the waitress puts on a smile and says “What can I get you guys?” as if nothing happened is enough to send him into a fit, ducking his face into the corner and absolutely refusing to look at TK while the waitress is still there. 

TK ends up ordering for him and doesn’t kick him back until after the waitress walks away, at which point TK says “I actually hate you.” Nolan tries not to be too pleased by that. 

What he is pleased by is having good fresh diner food instead of the same take out over and over again. TK looks unfortunately smug about this. “Is this better than your pity parties?”

Nolan shrugs. “I mean, it’s alright I guess.”

Evidently TK knows Nolan well enough to know what a glowing review looks like. “Oh, thank you Travis,” he says with his voice pitched up as if that’s somehow supposed to make him sound more like Nolan. “You’re my saviour for reminding me what the outside world looks like, Travis.”

Nolan just kicks him again.

***

Nolan spends a lot more time at the rink to do his gentle skating which means he sees the trainers way more often and the trainers use this to take advantage of the progress he’s shown and tinker with every aspect of his treatment plan. Nolan’s gotten to the point where he has to carry a sticky note with him when he’s buying food because he can’t remember what they’ve decided is okay and what isn’t.

Nolan wants to make fun of the trainers for what seems like a ridiculously chaotic process but every week he feels better after practice and can handle more days with more things and _that_ makes him want to kiss every one of them on the mouth. 

“You’ve seemed better recently,” TK says between bites one day at lunch and Nolan is impossibly pleased that someone else has picked up on his progress because that means it must be real.

When he’s finally allowed to practice again he feels like he has a new lease on life. Hockey is buzzing under his skin the way it did when he was ten, when it was the only thing he ever wanted to do, like he would be happiest if he never had to do anything else again. Haysie bumps into his shoulder like a proud dad. TK follows him around all practice and yaps into his ear like he was the one who had been cooped up all year. 

“You have no idea how tired I am of people asking me how I’m feeling” he says to the reporters. 

He’s not lying. He just wants to play. 

Not that he can really play quite yet. Ideally Nolan would be able to jump into games right away, but the brain part of his brain knows that it’s not for the best. He’s a hockey player, it's in his bones to lie about injuries, but deep down he knows he’s not 100%. He sighs a little at his non contact jersey at the end of the week. TK gives him a sympathetic look. “Best not to mess with it. Heads, y’know?” And Nolan thinks he knows that better than anyone.

Hockey is still hockey, at the end of the day. He'll take what he can get.

He shows up early to get ice time before practice and he stays late to work more with the coaches after and makes the absolute most of what he’s working with. He can’t get game speed or game situation or really anything that feels particularly game related but at least his shot is gonna be wicked once he really gets the chance to use it.

It shouldn’t make Nolan’s heart squeeze the way it does that he gets to be in the team photo even though he hasn’t played a single game this season. He knows that it’s largely administrative, has as much to do with being under contract as anything. Still, it’s nice. They stick him next to TK which is great cause it's gonna make TK look tiny in the picture (or, tinier than normal) and Nolan almost makes fun of him for it but he’s a good enough friend not to say it into the mic he knows TK’s wearing for Flyers TV. TK’s been nice to him today anyways. 

They have a minute to chill while the photographers work out whatever it is they need to do and Nolan takes the opportunity to sit down for a bit, listening to the trainer in the back of his mind that likes to remind him about the importance of rest. TK wordlessly sits down next to him and continues chirping Sander until they get the cue that it’s time for the picture.

“Stand up, buddy. You good?” TK asks him gently in a voice that Nolan has heard him use a lot recently but never with any person other than him. He thinks he should be offended, maybe, that TK is talking to him like he’s a small animal because he’s 6 foot 2 and a _man_ , thanks, but he accepts his help getting up anyways. Nolan knows that TK’s been worried about him and it probably can’t hurt to allow this one thing.

“Smile, Pat?” he asks once they’re standing.

Just the one thing, though. No more.

***

It might also make his heart squeeze a little bit when TK says ‘hi’ to the little mooses in the stands. He knows exactly what it means. He’s not thinking about it. 

***

Nolan’s cautiously optimistic about the combination of his current meds and restricted diet. The trainers keep reminding him that they need more time to feel confident, but he’s felt mostly good since he started with it. Maybe if he keeps only positive vibes in his head it won’t try to spite him anymore.

He keeps staying late after practice to run drills and try to get all the way back up to speed even though he can’t do everything that he wants. It's frustrating, really, and he’s so tempted to find a way to get around the trainers orders, but.

Positive vibes. 

TK throws a ball of tape at him in the locker room. “Soon?” he asks, and it’s less of an empty reassurance than it is a genuine question for once.

Nolan nods resolutely. “Soon.”

He genuinely believes it.

***

When he first gets cleared for contact a _certain_ media member thinks he’s being clever when he writes an article about how “Nolan Patrick is cleared for contact, but is it the best for the Flyers to have him play?” as if Nolan is the first player in hockey, noted contact sport, to have ever dealt with a long term injury. Nolan and the coaching staff both know that it’s been many, many months since he’s last played an actual hockey game, which is why they’re going to let him practice for a bit first and then do a conditioning stint before throwing him back into actual NHL games. This seems like a fairly obvious solution to Nolan.

A fairly obvious solution that does run him up against the end of the season timeline wise. He gets various tidbits and lectures from various people about patience. “All in due time” and all that fun stuff. Nolan’s chomping at the bit obviously and if he was fully left to his own devices he might have pushed things but as it is he can recognize progress when he sees it and it’s been coming in leaps and bounds since he’s been fully allowed to practice again. After how stagnant the early going was, he’ll take progress as success. 

Haysie skates over and taps his stick on Nolan’s shin pads as they make their way off the ice after a particularly good practice. “You were buzzing today.”

Nolan doesn’t try to keep the grin off his face. “I feel good.”

“You look good,” TK says, skating up and squishing himself between them. Nolan grins at him too which distracts him enough to let Haysie face wash him. TK moves to slap his glove away and Haysie uses his size avantage to get TK in a headlock and drag him off the ice. 

Nolan can hear Haysie say “You animal” as they skate away and this does nothing to take the smile off Nolan’s face. 

“Careful, your face might get stuck like that,” one of the trainers chirps at him when he gets off the ice, which would honestly kind of not work for his, like, aura, but he figures one day won’t kill him.

Having it happen again within the same week might be cause for concern but Nolan has bigger fish to fry when the coaching staff informs him that they’re sending him down for his conditioning stint tomorrow morning, so he should pack his bags. TK comes over that night to sit on Nolan’s bed and be totally useless.

“I’m providing commentary,” he says, as if that helps anyone. “For instance, that shirt is ugly.” It is arguably not Nolan's best shirt but Nolan throws it at him anyways on principle.

It’s only for a week, so Nolan doesn’t actually have that much packing to do, just shoves some shirts and pants into a bag and calls it good. When TK leaves he gets all stern and goes “see you on the other side, buddy” like Nolan’s going to war and not Lehigh Valley for like a week.

“I’m literally going to Lehigh Valley for a week,” Nolan reminds him. 

TK puts his hand over his heart dramatically. “And who knows what goes on out there?”

Nolan snorts. “Don’t worry darling dearest, I’ll be sure to write.”

TK nods. “I’ll be awaiting your letter.”

(He does actually correspond with TK while he’s there, through texts, like a normal person. He sends pictures of food and his hotel room and gives him very important life updates such as “the eggs at this hotel are fucking gross.” TK sends him a bunch of thumbs up emojis after every game he plays which is like, kind of actually nice. Nolan didn’t expect him to know the schedule. _Nolan_ hardly even knew the game schedule before he got there.)

(Nolan's not thinking about that either. It's been his thing recently, not thinking. Maybe it's why his head's been better.)

He meets with the trainers who have all luckily been briefed on his whole thing, and then he meets with the coaches and the equipment staff and various new teammates and the whole experience is kind of weird and makes him almost feel like he’s G or something. Like, not with captainly authority but he sort of feels like an old vet when he’s with all these guys who are desperately trying to get their own taste.

He doesn’t mean to be standoffish and hopes that he doesn’t totally come off that way but really he has a job to do and everyone knows his presence is only temporary anyways.

His conditioning stint most of all reminds him of some of the drive he had when he was younger. Like, obviously he’s super motivated to earn himself a steady spot in the NHL and prove some assholes wrong and be a _star_ or whatever, but there’s just something about looking up and above you at the next level and wanting to _be_ that and doing everything you can to make it happen. He knows that he didn't actually get sent down, obviously, but all the same the prospect of a few games in the AHL makes him want to prove that he’s better than that and earn his spot back.

He’s over a goal per game while he’s in the A before the Flyers bring him back up so he thinks he’s done that pretty well.

***

The Flyers bring him back up just in time for the playoffs which is pretty awesome. Like, getting to play at any point at all during the regular season at all would have also been pretty awesome, obviously, but there’s nothing like playoff hockey. It’s a cliche and it’s stamped all over official NHL marketing channels and that doesn't make it any less true.

He goes back to his first practice with the team and the guys smack him with their sticks or throw things at him or bump into him while he’s skating and just generally show their love to him and he’s so unbelievably happy to be back. 

The guys are also obviously happy he’s back but the general amount of shenanigans is down because it’s not goof around time. Everyone on this team knows how important the playoffs are and how important it is to take them seriously. Nolan could bury himself in game tape and systems diagrams and strategies at this point. It's almost comforting to have something to focus his entire being into. 

TK is playoff intense basically all the time and even he's settled into the quiet calm that's coursing through the team. This could be their year. It _is_ their year, no time for maybe’s. They can all feel it.

TK throws an arm around Nolan’s shoulder as they’re leaving the rink. “Tomorrow,” he says. 

_Tomorrow._

***

It’s game one and it’s close and the game is tied when TK puts a perfect fucking pass right on Nolan’s tape and comes crashing into Nolan’s arms screaming into his face like he was the one that scored, like this whole nightmare of a season up until this point was his struggle too and not Nolan’s alone. TK yells into Nolan’s ear and doesn’t shut up for a second as they get back to the bench.

It strikes Nolan suddenly how at home he feels with this crowd, with this team, right here on this bench with TK by his side. 

There's no feeling quite like scoring an important goal in the playoffs and every hockey player knows this and when he sees the look on TK's face he's not expecting it to be so familiar. It's, like, it's this ridiculously honest bright eyed face that he makes when he gets Nolan to really laugh, full bodied, or when Nolan does things like accidentally admit how much he likes TK's company, and Nolan has to pretend not to notice how soft it makes him every time.

The look on his face isn't reserved for really, really good hockey. It's reserved for Nolan.

He thinks about the whole miserable season and how TK was by his side for every miserable moment of it and when he sees that same sunshiney look on his face it hits Nolan over the head all at once how really not alone he’s been in _everything_ the whole time. 

He can’t do anything about it, not here on the ice. He probably wouldn’t even if he could. He just wants to let himself sit in the moment and let himself _feel_ , free and open and overwhelmingly so. It’s such an unassuming way for the world to snap back onto its axis but Nolan can feel it and he can feel everything really clicking again, finally. He grins over at TK as the crowd roars and lets himself get pulled in as TK throws an arm around his shoulder to call his goal a beauty about a hundred times and yell “Let’s fucking go boys!” at the rest of the bench.

“Let’s fucking go!” Nolan echoes. He’s here to help his team win a god damn hockey game. It’s been long enough. 

The rest of the game whizzes by in a blur, years of instinct kicking in and taking over. Nolan’s still buzzing with it, the game, the goal, _TK_ when they get back into the locker room. The stats and the score barely matter at all besides the fact that they won, and Nolan accepts the victorious smacks from his teammates and tries not to vibrate out of his skin. It’s incomparable, the whole thing. It's what runs through his veins and it’s what keeps him coming back despite the struggling and the sacrifices and it's all so, _so_ worth it and Nolan can't get enough. He feels _alive_. 

The guys all go out after and once they get out of the locker room it's _TK_ and it’s all TK and Nolan’s just trying to find his moment. He sags back from the group a little bit and lets TK find him and call him “the absolute man, Patty” and sling an arm around Nolan’s shoulder and then with an air of casualness ask “everything all right?” and Nolan can’t remember what his plan was or if he even managed to make one but when he sees the flicker of genuine caring that crosses TK’s face he has no choice but to pull him in and kiss him for all he’s worth.

It’s amazing after all this that Nolan’s not nervous, not even for a second, when he pulls back.

TK still has his hand braced on Nolan's arm where he grabbed it out of instinct. He searches Nolan’s face for a half a second. “You mean it?”

And Nolan does mean it. More than he knows how to put into words, so he doesn’t even try, he just pulls TK back in to kiss him again.

TK’s face isn’t searching or unsure or surprised this time when they break apart. His grip tightens on Nolan’s arm, eyes shifting to that Game 7, OT, all or nothing look of determination. “Come home with me tonight.” 

Nolan’s not even going to pretend to argue that.

**Author's Note:**

> A fun fact: my sister used to get these really gnarly optic migraines that were all the fun of a regular migraine but also they basically make you go blind during them and she was on meds for a while that at least got rid of the blind part but the one thing that made them well and truly go away, never to return again? Cutting out tea and chocolate. Go figure.
> 
> If you catch any typos or notice anything that seems like a glaring error please feel free to let me know.
> 
> Anyways, I hope you enjoyed and I hope you're all well in this weird, weird time.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * A [Restricted Work] by [Annapods](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annapods/pseuds/Annapods) Log in to view. 




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